This was the morning presentation from the Rocky Mountain Regional Innovative Users Group Summer Workshop. Presented June 12, 2009 at the University of Colorado at Denver Health Sciences Library.

Jennifer Knievel and Jina Wakimota – University of Colorado at Boulder Chinook OPAC redesign

data to examine impact of redesign – took pulse before and after

old interface cluttered and forced user to choose index first

new interface clean, “Google experience” with access to more advanced features for researcher needs

Not just presentation — back end work, re-presentation of metadata

research q: would keyword default increase keyword searching?

are users using catalog less and migrating to Google more?

abandoned using 225 or 229 fields for periodical search– changed to Scope instead so that periodical-specific search could be enabled

reindexed database (had not been done in 10 years) — had been changes in Marc, Millenium features, etc.

Methods

Transactional Log analysis – unbiased, unobstrusive, lends itself to longitudinal analysis

Text Searches- Author, Title, Keyword, Subject

slight increase in keyword searches (about 4%)

slight decrease in Author searches (about 4%)

everything else stayed about the same with a spike in Title searches just before redesign (coincided with intro of periodical scope- search for journal titles)

Did a T-test for statistical significance

beginning and end of semester more known search, mid-semester more discovery (more keyword)

subject lowest used – no surprise

author low use

title and keyword rising slowly over time

downside of transactional analysis– can’t assess user success

Number Searches – Call #, ISSN/ISBN only

dramatic increase in LC call number searches– highest in the beginning of the semester (locating the items given to find perhaps?)

increase in ISSN searching before WebBridge implementation – correlated with making it easier

Total Searches

Catalog use steady – did not see decrease in usage, saw a spike in usage when new OPAC first implemented but then it went back to previous numbers